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Rapid Fire 2012-01-20: F-35B Off Probation?

  • K-Street Washington lobbyists see promise in the 2012 retirees, but how’s this for a blunt assessment? “Republicans are bonds. Dems are the options you play with the last 20 percent of your money…”
  • Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy’s principal deputy Dr. James N. Miller will replace her when she leaves next month according to Yahoo News.
  • It’s hard to call people who pay farmers 1/1,000th of their crop’s value Marxists, but FARC tries to wear the mask. Turns out they’re under pressure on the cocaine front, so they’re switching to… cattle rustling.

KLASS of Kuwait: Aerostats Extend their Reach

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TCOM 32M
TCOM 32M

In December 2011, TCOM, LP in Columbia, MD received a $10.4 million firm-fixed-price contract for the Kuwait Low Altitude Surveillance System aerostat’s contractor engineering technical support (CETS). While the aerostat itself could be handled by commercial sale protocols, CETS operation and maintenance of the KLASS aerostat is considered to be a Foreign Military Sale item, in pursuit of a “mission essential asset for this sensitive region of the world.” Work will be performed in Kuwait (90%); Columbia, MD (5%); and Elizabeth City, NC (5%), and is expected to be complete by December 2013. Kuwait directed its agents at US Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, VA to sole-source this buy (M67854-12-C-2404).

These kinds of tethered lighter-than-air craft come in a range of sizes, and aerostats have become a global trend. Their ability to carry sensors aloft for weeks at a time greatly improves radar and/or optical surveillance systems’ field of view at near-zero per-hour deployment costs. This makes them especially effective at protecting military bases or key national infrastructure, but they’ve also been deployed to provide coverage over cities, border patrol, and coastal surveillance. Larger aerostats, like the TCOM 71s used in the USA’s JLENS system, can offer the kind of coverage that normally requires high-end AWACS aircraft.

Flying LTTE Tigers, LET Terrorist Boats Help Spur Indian Aerostat Buys from Israel

Indian ocean
Ripple effect

Sharp criticism of IAF for aerostat crash, procurement failure; Plans for 9 more? (Sept 9/11)

As countries recognize the need to watch their borders, and especially their coasts, they’re running up against the reality of high operating costs for aerial surveillance. They’re also turning to a logical way around that problem: aerostats. These tethered airships offer very low operating costs and near-constant deployment, carrying optical and radar surveillance gear to altitudes that give them wide-area coverage. Israel has joined the USA as a leading developer of these systems, and a leading exporter as well. One of its customers is India.

In 2007, the Tamil Tigers’ (LTTE), which was responsible for assassinating Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, attacked Sri Lankan military bases and oil facilities using an unusual weapon for guerrillas and terrorists: aircraft. The implications of those attacks were regional in scope, and in time, aerostats’ value would be driven home by another surprise, this time from Islamic LET terrorists operating from Pakistan. The gaps it revealed in India’s defenses, and the deployment of the existing Israeli aerostat systems to protect critical areas in the attack’s aftermath, strongly underlined the systems’ value. Now India’s Navy is now buying them, too, and additional purchases are expected…

Time for TARS Along USA’s Southern Borders

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TARS
TARS, deployed

An aerostat is a lighter-than-air craft that relies on a ground tether for movement and sometimes for electrical power as well, as opposed to blimps which are self-powered, free-flying craft. The US military has slowly come around to the benefits of aerostats in an era that requires persistent surveillance, but features high fuel prices.

The RAID program has morphed into the tower-centric GBOSS, and progress on the naval front remains slow, but the $1+ billion JLENS advanced aerial surveillance program is still moving ahead, and Lockheed Martin has delivered its PTDS aerostats to the front lines for ground surveillance duties. TARS is also part of this mix, with several firms participating in the program…

Rapid Fire 2011-08-30: Top Aerospace Companies

  • China continues to refute the findings of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) annual report on its military and security policies. The deputy secretary of the China Society of Military Science labels the report as ‘groundless’ and a product of Cold War thinking.
  • The first photographs emerge of Chinese aircraft on display at the Changchun First Aviation Open Day. The pictures come days after photographs suggesting that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) J-11B heavy fighter is operational.
  • Opinions vary as to the make and role of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that crashed over southwest Pakistan last week.

Requests for Proposals Round Up, Late-August 2011

Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) has recently disclosed the following Requests for Proposals (RFPs), modifications and other notifications:

Rapid Fire 2011-08-26: Assessing Chinese Military Power

  • Rosoboronexport delivers 6 Mi-17 helicopters to Indonesia. A $56 million contract was signed by Jakarta and the state-owned corporation for the helicopters.

The USA’s RAID Program: Small Systems, Big Surveillance Time

TCOM 17M Aerostat and Trailer
TCOM 17M RAID Aerostat

$9.5M in tower sensors; $10M in spares; Full public access enabled. (Aug 23/11)

The RAID program is a combination of cameras and surveillance equipment positioned on high towers and aerostats, in order to monitor a wide area around important locations and bases. The RAID concept began with a smaller TCOM 17M aerostat as the base platform, instead of the TCOM 71M JLENS aerostats used for cruise missile and air defense. Its sensors were also optimized for battlefield surveillance, rather than JLENS’ focus on powerful air defense radars. The result is a form of survivable and permanent surveillance over key areas that has been deployed to Afghanistan & Iraq.

“Aerostats” has actually become something of a misnomer, however – RAID can also be deployed as a tower system, and this “Eagle Eye/ GBOSS” deployment is turning out to be the preferred mode. Raytheon continues to receive contracts from the US Marine Corps and US Army for new towers, as well as maintenance of existing systems…

USA’s HAA & ISIS Projects Seek Slow, Soaring Surveillance Superiority

High Altitude Airship LM Concept
Lockheed HAA Concept
DII

Article & program updates; HAA prototype failure. (Aug 1/11)

DARPA’s ISIS program is developing a stratospheric airship with sensor antennas that will include a radar nearly as large as the airship. This would create a battlefield surveillance platform with extreme endurance, and equally extreme resolution for its air and battlefield scans via radar and other carried sensors. This project is associated with Lockheed’s High Altitude Airship program, which is intended to soar at over 65,000 feet for over 30 days at a time, and ISIS could even play a significant role in ballistic missile and cruise missile defense.

Like all DARPA projects, HAA and ISIS pushed the limits of technology, as they work to field a capability set that could revolutionize the US Air Force. If they succeed, these airships could serve as a future substitute for an array of platforms, from UAVs to high-end jets like the E-8 JSTARS and E-3 AWACS. Critical technology areas include low aerial-density advanced airship hull material, bonding systems that will keep the radar attached in a hostile environment, extremely low-power transmit-receive modules for the radars, and novel power systems for long-endurance stratospheric airship operation. HAA has become a US Army program, but ISIS remains with DARPA – for now…

Rapid Fire 2011-08-02: AV8-B Harriers’ Weapons Loads

  • Brookings Institution and University of Maryland scholars tell the National Bureau of Asian Research that the United States and India should co-develop weapons technology to overcome technology transfer restrictions. They also argue that India’s rejection of US bids for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) requirement was based upon worries over supply reliability.
  • The UK Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) announces the development of the National Training Estate Prime (NTEP) contract. The contract value may reach £900 million ($1.4 billion).
  • The Czech Defense Ministry is to impose sanctions on Omnipol because defects on its new EADS CASA C-295 turboprop transport aircraft have not been repaired on time.
  • A photograph emerges reportedly showing changes to China’s fifth J-10B prototype multirole fighter.